


When We Were Very Young

by methylviolet10b



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: (mostly), Introspection, Pre-Canon, Prompt Fic, References to Drug Use, Spoilers, family and dysfunctional family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-19
Updated: 2012-08-19
Packaged: 2017-11-12 11:02:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/490164
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/methylviolet10b/pseuds/methylviolet10b
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sometimes storybook answers are they only true ones.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When We Were Very Young

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the following prompt: “Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.” -- A.A. Milne

 

When Sherlock was four and Mycroft eleven, they made a very important discovery.

Mummy was distracted, Father was elsewhere, and Sherlock was sick. The servants, sensing turmoil and a lack of a firm hand, were hardly to be found.

So Mycroft took matters into his own hands. He fetched juice and biscuits from the kitchen and brought them to Sherlock’s room, along with a very old book. It was a very special book, one that had been Father’s when he was a boy.

Sherlock was both limp and restless with fever, but his entire face brightened when Mycroft entered the room. “My.” A single syllable, but Mycroft heard all it contained: the love, the happiness, the boredom, the question.

“I have come to read you a story,” Mycroft answered. “And I brought you juice and ginger biscuits.”

Sherlock smiled, and Mycroft saw that his brother had understood everything he’d meant with his words, all the meanings underneath.

They snuggled together on Sherlock’s bed, Sherlock’s strawberry-blond ringlet-covered head resting on Mycroft’s shoulder as they both looked at the pages of the old book. Mycroft read the story aloud, although he knew Sherlock could easily read the words himself.

_“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”_

Sherlock was very quiet after the story ended. He looked up at Mycroft, an enormous question shining in his pale, fever-glassy eyes. “Do you think Christopher Robin meant it? What he said to Winnie-the-Pooh?”

Mycroft ran one gentle hand over Sherlock’s head before answering the questions, both the spoken and unspoken. “Of course he did, Sherlock. And it was true. Christopher Robin knows, and I know.”

Sherlock sighed, an enormous smile stretching over his face. “You do,” he agreed with utter confidence and trust.

The fever passed. The household gradually fell back into normal routines. But the discovery remained. They did not say it aloud; both were too self-conscious, too intelligent, too much a product of their backgrounds. But the story of Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh, and the love behind it, remained. It became a code between them, one of many they developed, the two brothers who shared so many of the same gifts, who were so very close even if they never said so. The differences in their ages mattered, but did not interfere.

 

When Sherlock was eleven and Mycroft eighteen, they made another discovery.

Mycroft was visiting home, accompanied by several of his new friends from Uni. Sherlock was at home, too, thrilled and delighted at Mycroft’s presence, and wanting to spend every minute with his adored older brother. He shadowed Mycroft and his friends everywhere, asked constant questions, would not leave them alone.

His friends thought it amusing, and were quick to try and take advantage, ordering Sherlock about.

Privately annoyed by the whole situation, Mycroft did not stop them. “You might as well make yourself useful  if you insist on hanging about,” he snapped. “But I’d thought you’d know better by now.”

Sherlock froze. His eyes went wide for a fraction of a second, then narrowed, as he heard everything Mycroft meant, said and unsaid. “I won’t stay, if I’m not wanted.”

“You’re not,” Mycroft assured him.

So Sherlock went, and stayed away for the rest of Mycroft’s visit. And Mycroft was glad. He was not so glad when he returned to school and Sherlock continued to stay away. He had used to write Mycroft all the time, with questions and studies and observations. But after that visit, Sherlock did not write. And Mycroft did not write to Sherlock, either.

 

When Sherlock was eighteen and Mycroft twenty-five, Sherlock discovered drugs, and Mycroft discovered just how little influence he retained over the younger brother who used to trust his every word, look to him for guidance and support.

This discovery made Mycroft so angry he hardly spoke a meaningful word to his brother for another eleven years. Words were exchanged – sometimes frequently – but beneath them, silence.

 

When Sherlock was twenty-nine and Mycroft thirty-six, Sherlock nearly died of a drug overdose. For all his power and influence – and by then, Mycroft was one of the five most powerful men in the British Empire – he was powerless in the face of his brother’s near-fatal disintegration. Instead, it was an ordinary Detective Sergeant who made the difference between life and death for his brother. Who not only saved Sherlock’s life, but got him to _stay_ in rehab, by threatening to refuse to work with Sherlock unless he was clean.

Mycroft was very, very good at hearing the unspoken by then, even when uttered by a complete stranger. He heard the other message to Sherlock, the faith and belief the detective had in his brother, the conviction that Sherlock was worth saving. Imperfect confidence, soured by bitter experience and suspicion, but sincere all the same.

He knew his brother heard it, too.

It made the difference Mycroft could not. The difference Mycroft had thrown away, with foolishness and pride and years of silence.

The discovery was gall and wormwood on his tongue.

 

When Sherlock was thirty-five and Mycroft forty-two, John Watson appeared in Sherlock’s life. Within twelve hours, Mycroft met him face-to-face. And in John’s immediate, utter refusal to spy on Sherlock, or bow in any way to Mycroft, he heard many things. Things said unspoken to Mycroft, that no one had dared say to him in longer than he could immediately recall. And there were things said to the third man not physically present in the room but there in the conversation all the same, things said and promised to Sherlock whether he was there to hear them or not. Things he doubted anyone had said to his brother in years, with words or underneath them. Things Sherlock might not have heard since Mycroft stopped saying them.

A few hours later, watching Sherlock and John speaking together just after Sherlock stepped down from the ambulance, Mycroft heard exactly what John said to Sherlock, even though he could not hear the actual words.

_“Promise me you'll always remember: You're braver than you believe, and stronger than you seem, and smarter than you think.”_

Mycroft smiled even as a pain shot through his chest. Standing there small and ordinary, dressed in an ugly beige jumper, John Watson made an unlikely Christopher Robin. And just as Mycroft had said so many years before, Christopher Robin knew. Christopher Robin believed.

And judging from the delighted, open, beatific smile breaking across his brother’s face, so did Sherlock.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted July 20, 2012


End file.
